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Visit any major urban centre today and you are likely to be confronted with hundreds of people walking with their heads down as they fiddle with their mobile phones.

But the phenomenon is not just irritating, it is actually changing the way people walk, according to scientists, who found that gait becomes far more exaggerated when using a phone.

Researchers at the University of Delaware in the US asked 22 volunteers to dial a number on their mobile phone while walking on a treadmill for periods of two minutes.

The walkers wore 62 reflective markers on the arms, trunk, pelvis and legs which were picked up by motion cameras to measure knee flexion, hip movement and leg swing.

The experiment showed that when distracted by dialling numbers, the volunteers began to walk with strange exaggerated strides, their knees bending to peak position on each step, and their ankles fully flexed, as it to give themselves as much chance as possible at stepping over tripping hazards.

The researchers say that people unconsciously adopt the posture because their body senses that they are at greater risk of falling over. The large, exaggerated movements potentially help them to negotiate crowds and compensate for their diminished vision.

Text lanes

First author Kelly Seymour of the department of Mechanical Engineering at the Univeristy of Delaware said: “Our results suggest that when dialing a phone while walking, healthy adults adopt a more cautious gait pattern, which may limit the risk of falling.

“Dual tasking resulted in increased stride width in our participants. This may represent compensation for a feeling of instability during dual task walking by increasing the base of support.”

The researchers found that there were few mistakes in number dialling during the experiment which suggests that participants were prioritising dialling over walking.

A recent study by the University of Bath found that texters had developed a protective shuffle that prevents them bumping into obstacles, or tripping over hazards.

They discovered that it took those texting 26 per cent longer to complete a walking task compared to those who were not distracted by their phones.

However the new research sought to find out how gait changed when people could not slow down, to help maintain their balance. They found that the exaggerated movement increased to compensate for moving faster.

“However, in today's fast-paced world individuals are often rushed and do not choose to slow their gait speed, and even if they do, they remain more likely to fall while walking and performing another task simultaneously than while only walking.

“An increase in step width is characteristic of cautious gait, correlated with fear of falling.”